Given on 17 May 2026 at Our Lady and St Vincent, Potters Bar for the 20th anniversary of the dedication of the church building.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I am pleased indeed to be with you on this day, as we mark 20 years since Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor dedicated this church.  We give thanks today for all who were engaged in the work that brought this building to birth and we remember all those of the communities that came together in the formation of what was a new parish in 2002.  We always build on the work of those who have gone before us.  We give thanks for their witness and dedication to the mission of the church, most especially in the handing on of the gift of faith to new generations.  We give thanks for the Dominican Sisters who were such an important part of the Church’s life for so many years. 

We pray for all the priests – both Vincentians and those from the Diocese – who have served here down through the years and marvel at the thought that, at the very beginning, priests from Westminster Cathedral came to celebrate a Sunday Mass.  I suspect the journey time today is about the same as it was then!

Fr. Tim O’Connor wrote that the possibility of the ‘antiphonal’ design of the Church was mentioned as something of an afterthought.  The result is the striking building that has become the home of this parish, bringing together the two communities of Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac.  One might be forgiven for wondering whether the two communities took a side of the choir each, as it were, when the church was first opened – but the design, with its roots in the monastic tradition, is rather an expression of the continual breath of prayer.

In the choir stalls of a monastery, the alternating singing is a sign of the inhaling and exhaling of our breath – breath that is God’s gift: life that is designed for the praise of Him Who made us and sent His Son to die and rise from the dead for our salvation.  An antiphonal church is one way of expressing unity through cooperation: just as Ss. Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marrillac worked together in the founding of the Daughters of Charity. 

St. Luke, writing in Acts of the Apostles, speaks of the response of the Apostles, together with Mary the Mother of Jesus, to the Ascension.  It was a coming together in prayer.  So in this building, week by week, year by year, this community of the Church comes together in prayer. 

Jesus’ prayer at the Last Supper, from which we hear in today’s Gospel, is one very specifically for those the Father has given to Him: His Mother and these same Apostles – and all those to whom the Gospel will be brought.  His prayer is for us as we are His people in the world that, at every time in history, has experienced the insults about which Peter writes in his letters.

The bricks and mortar, the artwork of this church, are signs of Christ’s presence in the world – but the living stones: you and I – are the ones whom the Lord calls to be His people, His witnesses to the end of the earth.  Our inhaling and exhaling in the breath of prayer gives us the oxygen – if I may put it this way – to proclaim the Risen Christ to a divided and conflicted world. 

As we look to our celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit, let us remember that through our Baptism and Confirmation the Holy Spirit dwells in us, breaths through us and strengthens us for the task we have been given.  We need not fear in this work, for the Holy Spirit will always give the necessary words to our breathing. 

As the praise of God continues to rise from this ‘antiphonal’ church, may every action, every breath of this community proclaim always the Risen Lord in this part of our Diocese and, beyond, to the wider world.